A stain on your career

Media scion
Lachlan Murdoch
has one, as does
Michael Clarke
, the cricketer and man most likely to take over from
Ricky Ponting
as Australian Test captain.

Although a handful of high-profile people sport such markings, tattoos are still a no-no for any ambitious executive, unless they are discreetly covered by sensible business attire.

Once the domain of bikies, seamen or footballers who may have celebrated a little too hard, tattoos are now big business.

There are no official figures on which to gauge the size of the fragmented industry, but anecdotal evidence suggests it is a lucrative money spinner for both tattoo artists and others who profit from the practice’s renaissance.

The only reputable study of tattoo prevalence, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, was conducted in 1998 and found that 10 per cent of Australians admitted to having one, according to an anthropologist and University of Queensland lecturer, Mair Underwood.

Tattoos have since acquired a more dominant position in popular culture – as well as visible positions on far more bodies – so it is fair to assume this figure is considerably higher today.

And there is plenty of evidence of the trend aside from the proliferation of tattooed bodies in central business districts and other public areas. The Sydney Tattoo and Body Art Expo hosted 160 tattoo artists and attracted 12,000 visitors when first held at Sydney Olympic Park in 2009. In 2010, there were 312 artists and more than 20,000 visitors, according to its organiser, Ric Sedin.

TV documentary series such as LA Ink, Miami Ink and London Ink – which follow real tattoo studios including High Voltage Tattoo in Los Angeles – are top-rating programs running back-to-back on Wednesday nights in prime time on pay TV channel TLC, due to voracious viewing appetite.

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The colourful (literally) cast, including Kat von D from High Voltage Tattoo, are now cult figures who have appeared on chat shows such as the eponymously named Ellen to show off their “body art", as it is now commonly called, to the US public at large.

These artists and their clientele of highly paid professionals, celebrities and housewives are responsible for much of Australians’ new-found interest in etching ancient script, a delicate butterfly or another custom design onto visible areas of the body, according to local tattoo artists.

It is less common to see “Mum" inked on a bicep these days, perhaps due to the fact that customised tattoos created in consultation between the tattooist and customer are de rigueur. Off-the shelf stencils might cost less, but are old-fashioned and don’t offer the same street cred for the fashion conscious.

Underwood says there are many reasons people get tattoos, from rebellion to fashion and, the most common reason, a desire to retain a connection with family, place or a community. She has interviewed a senior clergyman who in a tattoo session with his daughter – an exercise in parent/child bonding – had the symbol of his alma mater in England tattooed on his body in a perhaps subconscious expression of a lasting connection with his homeland.

Lawyers interviewed by Underwood had a more simple motivation: to shake off the shackles of their conservative workplace, be seen as a little “crazy" and “to make me feel not like a lawyer when I’m not at work".

Underwood believes fashion is also a common motivation, although people are loath to admit it. “If fashion wasn’t a motivation, we’d see a far greater variety in tattoos," she says.

Tattoo studios – they no longer refer to themselves as parlours, perhaps due to the seedy connotations – report that business people are frequent clients and particularly so over the past three years, according to one outlet in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

“They are a smaller proportion of our customers, but we get people from all walks of life. Business people are getting more tattoos as they become more mainstream and more talked about," an employee of the studio says. An investment banker could spend a not insignificant part of last year’s annual bonus on a tattoo if they chose a personalised and intricate “sleeve" to cover a whole arm – as Michael Clarke’s teammate, Mitchell Johnson, has chosen to do.

It can cost $170 to $200 per hourly session to get a tattoo, with a small and relatively simple design taking as little as 10 minutes to complete. But a sleeve can require three to 10 sittings of around six hours each, depending on its complexity, which could total $12,000 if the very highest hourly rates are charged.

Add a few smaller tattoos between the shoulder blades or across the chest and the cost could conceivably creep closer to $20,000. Still, Murdoch’s relatively subtle tattoo – around his forearm – and those of other public figures, adds more credence to the case for a tattoo on up-and-comers in the business world who in the past considered tattoos, well, taboo.

But headhunter Andrew McEncroe, of Derwent Executive, says while tattoos are not as frowned-upon in social circles as much as in previous generations, professional job seekers would do well to keep them covered.

That’s easy for males, as short-sleeved shirts are not common in banking, for example. Tattoos visible on the back of the neck would be a no-no, simply because it throws up questions that a recruiter wouldn’t otherwise ask.

“Don’t get one that can’t be covered up for professional purposes," McEncroe says. “You just run a risk that someone is going to pass judgment. It would prompt further questions, just like any other kind of pronounced characteristic."

Underwood agrees: “I’ve talked to people who said it can restrict their job opportunities because there is still a stigma attached to tattoos. The symbolism isn’t keeping up with the change in demographics of people who acquire one – people still see criminal and mental health issues."

Underwood, who is making a documentary about the changing demographics of those with tattoos, says generation Y can be as judgmental as older people, so it’s wrong to assume that a young workplace will accept a tattooed colleague or that in a decade no one will blink an eye at a tattoo.

It’s not just blokes who might make poor decisions while tattoos remain fashionable. Female professionals tempted by permanent eye liner, which is really a form of tattoo, should be aware that it tends to turn green over time and that is not a great look in hard-ball business negotiations or during an interview for a senior position.

Business people are awake to this reality and, apparently, acquire body art with discreet tattoos readily covered by a business shirt or blouse.

It is a sensible step for more than one reason. Tattoos are expensive to remove in a bid to improve career prospects. And the process is both time-consuming and painful, with no guarantee of success.

Laser removal, which is the first option for most people, can cost $300 to $700 per session, with four to 12 sessions often required. The lasers (a different one is required for each colour, due to different light wavelengths) shatter the pigment and the body’s immune system eliminates it.

Black and blue ink are the easiest to remove, with yellow, green and red that are also used unfortunately proving trickier.

“It’s easy to get a tattoo put on, but to get it taken off carefully and safely is more difficult," says Terence Poon, a dermatologist at Neutral Bay Laser and Dermatology clinic in the Sydney suburb of Neutral Bay.

“It’s not unusual for us to see people entering the corporate world and realising that what they did in their teenage years is not appropriate," Poon says.

The laser process makes it fade: sometimes almost completely but sometimes not, says the president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, NSW chapter, Graham Sellars.

“The main reason people give for wanting a tattoo removed is that they’ve grown out of it. They don’t like it any more. We get a steady stream of people," Sellars says.

Should laser treatment fail to produce the desired results, the next option is excision, but that only works for relatively small tattoos and can leave a scar three times bigger than the actual tattoo.

It’s a lot to bear for a fashion statement – and any unnecessary loss of hard-won career opportunity.